The columns during the pyramidal, or old style expressed with distinct clearness their purpose to serve as a support; in the hieratic, or new style this purpose is detached from the outer form of the column, which no longer has to support, but merely to serve as an ornament, or to proclaim some mysterious tenet in symbolic types. The face of Isis is to look to the four quarters of the globe; the closed or open lotus to symbolise the mystery of creation, the fountain of life, the cup of plenty, and the fount of all blessings. In this treatment they went so far as to imitate the very dew-drops on the lotus, in granite. A strict naturalism was the foundation of all Egyptian conventionalism, and in many instances they succeeded in producing perfectly astonishing effects. In their columns we recognise the very plant which must have suggested the forms. When made circular and of granite, these columns still retained the triangular shape of the papyrus by means of three raised lines on the round surface. At a later period they were fluted, and apparently tied together under the capital with a strap, cord, or band of a broad fibrous substance; the capital above rose in four divisions in the form of a closed lotus. In the hieratic style the fluting of the columns disappears—they are smooth, round, and covered with hieroglyphs, but the base still discloses the plant origin, disguised in an ornament of palm or reed leaves. Characteristic in these columns is the expression of tension in the swelling shaft, which was probably an unconscious imitation of wood-construction; the heavy cross-beams pressing on the thin posts produced this effect, which has been slavishly copied in stone. With the Greeks this swelling of the column became one of the elements of its beauty, because with them it was an abstraction of symmetrical proportion, consciously done, to express the conflicting powers of pressure and resistance. With a proud obstinacy the Egyptians, during their hieratic period, insisted on separating the ornamental from the architectural part of the building, so that no organic connection existed between sculpture and architecture. This is most striking in those colossal sitting figures which are placed in the front and at the back of propylæa, or before the walls of pylons. It is a clear separation of matter and spirit, of purpose and form, which is altogether contrary to the fundamental principles of good architecture.
Art with the Egyptians was thoroughly polychromatic; they tinted granite, of whatever colour, with a red pigment, so that the stone might have its proper divine colour, hallowed by the priests. They coloured in flat tints, and used no shading or shadow; they had, however, no difficulty in conveying to the mind the original forms which they intended to copy. Priestly canons regulated the size, form, colour, and expression of every statue, and every attribute had its prescribed form, the meaning of which was concealed from the artist, turning him into a mere unconscious machine, a tool in priestly hands. This is the reason why their works of art look monotonous, and everything with them is impressed by the crushing influence of over-regulation. The Typhonic blast of uniformity killed every higher aspiration in the artist. The human figure had to consist of nineteen units; the second finger was that unit. Squares of this unit were drawn on the flat, and according to these measurements the human figure was constructed with geometrical accuracy, looking as flat as possible. Dreary deserts of religious prejudices, gloomy superstitions, and childish formalities hindered all progress, and marked their sculpture and ornamentation with fixed, stereotyped stiffness, until the last period of their art.
D. The Ptolemaic style began to develop a little more life and taste. The statues did not look as if cast in a general mould; the gods were allowed to have their feet asunder, the one in advance of the other, which gave them some appearance of motion. How taste may be degraded by prejudice and custom, can be seen in the fact, that when this innovation in Egyptian art was settled by a general law of the Pharaoh, with the connivance of the high ceremonial courts, the masses, on seeing their gods with legs apart, as if ready to walk, rushed from all sides with strong ropes, and tied the divinities to their pedestals, horrified at the possibility of their leaving the country altogether. And the gods did leave the country. Anything based on superstition or prejudice, anything having for its vivifying element symbolism or mysticism, must die away in time.
What we said of Indian art holds good of Egyptian forms. Take away from the Uræus, the lotus, papyrus, palm, crocodile, cat, and bull their symbolic meaning, and these elements of ornamentation lose their vitality. The Greeks, and more especially the Romans, have shown us how we may use some of their patterns to advantage: how an entrance hall may be decorated with silent and mournful-looking sphinxes, and what an unsurpassed charm there is in the obelisk, directing the thought upwards. A pyramid still remains one of the finest monuments for one who has filled the four quarters of the globe with his fame.
In their every-day ornaments, rings, bracelets, necklaces, head-dresses and furniture, the architectural straight lines prevail; variety is not much required, the forms as well as the patterns must be the same. Just as we reproduce horse-shoe upon horse-shoe because they bring ‘luck,’ the Egyptian jeweller reproduced the scarabæus, and the Turin Museum has not less than 180 different kinds of scarabæi. In their architecture they suffered from one great evil—from a horror of symmetry. Their grand palaces or temples have no ruling element; everything is out of proportion, and though in their detailed ornamentation they were symmetrical, and even eurythmical—the harmony of purpose is often wanting. The thought of building for eternity, however, is always present, whilst no one can deny that in our buildings the ninety years’ lease is to be traced in every corner. The Egyptians tried to represent the forms of monumental architecture, and they certainly succeeded in reaching the sublime, but they did this in neglecting the beautiful. Their symmetrophobia, which many of our architects imitate only too successfully, spoilt everything. Their weavings were excellent; their wood-constructions, as far as furniture was concerned, faultless; music was known to them; they worked gold, and ornamented it in the so-called ‘champ-levé’ manner, and were acquainted with enamel ‘cloisonné.’ They also fixed thin layers of gold thread on metal, and filled the remaining spaces with enamel of different colours, which method the ancients called ‘encaustum.’ Notwithstanding all these advantages Egyptian art never reached the ideal of beauty; it has only the charm of the mysterious for us. To keep this sentiment alive is the duty of any modern artist who wishes to work in the Egyptian style. He must try to convey some mystic cosmogonical or incomprehensible religious thought in diapers, and floral ornament, or in the use of animals or the human frame in outlines, he must place his ideas and forms under a strict linear canon. He may then succeed in reproducing the artistic forms of a nation, during a period, in which humanity did not go beyond the hierarchical in religion, and the practical in art; during which mankind struggled to find forms, but was prevented from the freer exercise of its innate artistic force by the dictates of a despotic priesthood, and was tied with merciless tyranny to monotonous canons, crushing under the weight of symbolism and mysticism every higher artistic aspiration.
[CHAPTER VII.]
HEBREW ART.
Little, or rather nothing, can properly be said of Hebrew art, for it is a non-entity. The Hebrews are a mixed race. They assert themselves to be of the Semitic group of mankind, but ethnologically they are a composition of black, yellow, and white men, and are closely related to the Arabs and Phœnicians. They were generally slaves. For 450 years they were in bondage in Egypt, whence they first emerged into a national existence. From Moses to Saul, for 450 years, they lived under a kind of theocratic democracy: God, the supreme ruler in heaven, and the Jews on earth his chosen people. For another 450 years they had a kind of theocratic monarchy: God ruled in heaven, as the king ruled on earth. This period lasted from Saul to Zedekiah, and gives us—
(α) A period of 100 years under the first three kings, when the twelve tribes were yet united; and